


The Angel and the Fool

by SaltyNightmares



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Force Bond (Star Wars), ambiguous reylo, but it bothered me to not post it, don't really know what to tag it, not terribly proud of this, vague snipets of their lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-05 03:49:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11569677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaltyNightmares/pseuds/SaltyNightmares
Summary: Throughout our lives, we are told about our potential, our future. How often do those statements feel hollow, whispered by our betters in order to pacify our discontent with the present? Angels guiding fools to their deaths. Ben Solo knows this sentiment well. He knows the words of others are easily forgotten, bent and broken. What he can't account for are his own words and emotions that pull him away from the fools and toward an angel of another kind. He soon realizes that he was the real fool all along.





	1. The Angel

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic was inspired by the song: The Angel and the Fool by Broken Bells. When I heard it all I could think of was Kylo/Ben discovering his force bond with Rey and how he would interpret her situation and more importantly what it said about him.

It poured on Chandrila the day Ben Solo-Organa was born. While most of the planet was serenaded with the patter of rain-drops, in the medical bay of the capitol building, Princess Leia Organa was about to give birth. Those 12 hours of labor were some of the most stressful for both Leia, who swore she’d murder her husband for the ordeal and said-husband, Han, who was off-world for 6 of those hours. But when that screaming, bloody being was placed in her hands, Leia knew that all her struggles, all of her loss, was worth it. She could see the future of the galaxy in those soft, brown eyes. The same eyes that she had, the same eyes her brother had, the same eyes her father had. As he clung to her bosom possessively, Leia couldn’t help but feel uneasy, like this small bundle of joy would torn from her arms, like she and Luke were from their dying mother. Leia wiped his forehead, planting a gentle kiss, a promise whispered through her lips.  **_She’d do anything and everything to keep him safe._ **

 

Little did she know that her promise would become impossible to keep. From the moment he was born, Ben had been singled out by a force of darkness that had laid dormant for years. 

 

This darkness would ooze its way into the poor boy’s nights, leaving pain and anger in its wake. Nightmares that neither his mother’s kisses or his father’s cradling could assuage. Slowly, the terror spread from his dreams to even his waking moments, manifesting itself in outbursts of energy that could only be described as ‘using the force’. Though both his parents looked for ways to deny it, Ben had been born with the same sensitivity that ran through all the rest of the members of the Skywalker line. He was a force-user. 

 

It was six years since the fall of the Empire and yet, nothing seemed to change. Senator Leia, though beloved in the New Republic, found herself caught up in political mess after mess. Her husband was no less occupied, finding himself off on some world or another, ‘working’. Neither knew it yet but their relationship was on a cosmic drift. A drift under which their son would suffer the most, left unattended and abandoned for most of his early years. Ben learned to rely on himself, eternally craving affection and attention from both his parents, his father in particular. The fact was, taking Ben along with him had never even occurred to Han Solo. 

~

“Daddy?” 

“Hey there benny boy”

“Are you going again?”

Han chewed on his lip, as his boy looked up at him with those same glossy eyes. Eventually, he ruffles his hair and pulls him into a tight hug. “Daddy’s gotta go to work.”

“Uncle Chewie, too?” 

“Yes, Uncle Chewie too.” 

“When are you coming back?” 

“Soon, Benny. Soon.” 

He was gone for six months. Ben learned from then on, that his father’s promises would never be kept. 

~

His time with his uncle was no different. Luke Skywalker was by no means a cruel or unemphatic man but he couldn’t be the kind of parent Ben needed nor could he provide the love he wanted while still discipling him as his master. And so Ben Solo did what he had always done and retreated inward. 

 

Slowly, the nightmares stopped being nightmares and instead, became a training ground. The darkness, now giving itself a name, Snoke, had lulled Ben into feeding on his attention. When those that were supposed to love him had turned their backs, Snoke was there. Snoke was always there, right from the start, a strong grip on his shoulder, the only sense of comfort that Ben could cherish, knowing that it wouldn’t be retracted the moment a missive from the Republic came or the ‘boring’ family life became too burdensome. Ben had Snoke. And Snoke, finally, had Ben Solo. 

 

~

 

“Master Skywalker,” It was disrespectful and dangerous to refer to him as Uncle while in front of other padawans. “What is the Jedi code?”

 

The man whom he addressed cracked a wry smile. Ben was fond of asking this question and he, in turn, was fond of answering it. In his mind, this interest in the light meant that the boy would never stray from it. It was a foolish and short-sighted thought. “There is no emotion, there is Peace.” 

 

_ ”Peace is a lie. There is only Passion.” _ Came forth, what Ben would come to believe as the truth. He nodded sagely, committing his master’s words to memory.

 

“There is no ignorance, there is Knowledge.” 

 

_ “Through Passion I gain Strength.” _

 

“There is no passion, there is Serenity.”

 

_ ”Through Strength I gain Power.” _

 

“There is no chaos, there is Harmony.” 

 

_ ”Through Power, I gain Victory.” _

 

“There is no death, there is the Force.” 

 

_ ”Through Victory my chains are broken. The Force shall set me free.”  _

 

Freedom. It wasn’t something Ben had ever wanted before or at least not in the way it had been given to him. But as he spent the better part of his youth and later, his young adult life, in the Jedi Temple his Uncle had built, serving the interests of a Republic that had stolen his mother from him, Ben Solo wanted freedom. He hungered for it. The path of the Jedi offered no freedom. It was a pair of shackles that he was born with. Many years later, with the help of his new master, he would shed those shackles and shed the burden of Ben Solo that his parents had abandoned him with.

 

_ “Who is Ben Solo?”  _ asked the haggard voice that now occupied most of the air time in his mind. ‘Ben Solo is weak. Ben Solo is powerless. Ben Solo is a failure.’ He answered, in his usual daily meditative stance. The days of being a clueless boy had passed and Ben had grown to become a man that his parents, had they bothered to see him, would be proud of. He had mastered every technique and teaching that his Uncle had passed on to him and with the guidance of Master Snoke, learned to disregard those and possess the strength he’d been denied all his life. Once, he’d been powerless, unable to control any aspect of his existence. Now, he lived for himself. Perhaps that wasn’t quite true, the man who many called Ben Solo lived not for himself but for power. Power that was waiting for him to reach out and take it. With Force.  _ With strength. With  _ **_blood._ **

 

He was finally becoming the man he was meant to be. His parents and Uncle were weak, hiding the truth of their family name, burying their legacy by naming him after the man who betrayed their grandfather. It made his blood boil how ashamed they were of Vader. Darth Vader the man who rose to power and used the Dark Side to destroy the pathetic Jedi. His father was a coward and nothing of worth but even his own mother, the woman made of steel, even she hid the the truth from him. That betrayal squashed the last remaining tendrils of light left in the husk of a man that was Ben Solo. 

 

The only person who stayed honest by him was Snoke. His master was the only one he could trust. 

 

~

 

The night before he was to finally kill Ben Solo and set himself free, he dreamed for the first time in years. Snoke had done everything in his power to take away this  _ distraction _ but for the first time, Ben slept peacefully and dreamt of things beyond his reach. 

 

_ A gentle breeze wrapped around his body, leading him further along a canyon. It was a place he’d never been before and yet he felt a strange sense of familiarity, his body knowing when and where to turn along the winding path carved by a long gone body of water. Silence echoed off the walls of the deserted riverbed. The sand here looked as if it had been undisturbed for centuries, yet he knew others had walked this path. Others would walk it again.  _

_ Two large moons lit the path before him, one seemed to waning, the other waxing. But the dim light was enough to guide him forward. Eventually, he reached a slope that led out the canyon and presumably into the desert proper, but something else catches his eye first. A poorly constructed hut, its sequestered in the corner of the clearing before the exit.  _

_ It was insignificant in its size and perhaps by design, utterly dismissible. Yet, Kylo felt himself drawn in, as if he was meant to investigate.  _

_ A faint heartbeat filled the silence; one whose rhythm Kylo matched with ease. This alone should have made him turn back. But he had no control here.  _

_ He continued, entering the shack, it's only defense a makeshift door pulled closed by a scrap piece of rope. The dwelling was even smaller on the inside, thanks to the clutter of parts and scrap littering the floor and walls. Not an inch of clean surface was left and yet, it didn’t feel like a mess. If he wanted he could name every item, its function (or lack therefore), as if he had placed it himself.  _

_ As his eyes pan over the scene again, a sense of immense sadness overtakes him. It wasn’t his own. And yet, his eyes grew wet. They stop to stare at the only wall left clear. Sets of scratches ran up and down its length. The number of kills? A measure of time? The nature of those markings remained a mystery to him. He would never know.  _

_ Yet, the sight of them brought him pain like he never knew. Longing. It was as if it had been there all along and yet, it was the first time such emotion had burdened him. He was so affected, simply standing there became hard.  _

 

Before he could really understand what he was seeing or rather who, Ben was roused from his sleep by his master’s chilling voice. Then whatever fear or remorse was left was replaced with anger, the rage needed to complete his training. To become the monster he needed to be. 

 

~

To this day, the memory of that night haunts him. The faces of young children, the people who called him friend, his uncle’s own horror, none of this bothered him. In fact, he rarely gave it any thought. Perhaps that was the worst part. 

 

What he truly could not escape was the gaping loneliness of his dream. Abandoned. Alone. Afraid. It was so foreign to him and yet, whoever’s world he was intruding on was a kindred soul. What was he, if not abandoned. Ignored. Left to his own devices. Thrust into a world without any support. 

 

The dream would repeat itself, each time he would awake before he could learn anything further. It began to consume him, even during his training, his mind would wander back to that miserable hut and the identity of its owner. 

 

He wanted to imagine that there wasn’t one and the emotions he felt were simply his own being reflected in the hellscape. How much further from the truth could he be? 

 


	2. The Fool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the side of the galaxy, Rey's life is no less troubled. Hardships of the flesh come hand in hand with those of the mind, it takes a special kind of person to work past them and even more special person to use them to her strength.

Blistering heat and sand caked pile of discarded scraps of cloth served as her bedding, raised off the ground with rope she had salvaged over the years. It wasn’t fit for a Queen but it was where she spent most of her youth, hiding from raiders and thieves alike. Jakku was no place for child. But Rey didn’t stay one for very long. 

 

She learned quickly on how to keep her eyes down and hands ready. It meant the difference between your next meal and your death. Each night was a trial. Whether she’d be swallowed by the desert or by those that called it home.

 

It was less than yesterday but there was only so much scrap she could haul in this state. Unkar assessed her pile with a placid expression, no doubt disappointed with the amount. “One half portion,” He declared at last and waved her off. 

 

Her nostrils flared as the ten year old stood her ground. “Yesterday, these were three portions.” 

 

“The rate’s changed brat.” was the response. A few of the scavengers behind her were getting antsy. 

 

But Rey was not leaving without her pay. “Kriff, Plutt. Jameson got extra portions for less than what I got here. Playing favorites on this shit hole isn’t doing you favors.” 

 

The groans of disapproval turned to noises of agreement and one of the miscreants even vouched for her. “I saw ‘t, gave ‘em four portions, he did.” 

 

Unkar’s expression soured as the wave of dissent swept through the line behind the girl. Today wasn’t a new occurrence. Ever since she’d been dumped onto the planet, the girl with the buns had been a pain in his backside, arguing over portions, picking fights with rival scavenging operations. He most certainly regretted the credits he took to keep her here. It was not worth any investment. In the end, he bangs a spare bar of durasteel against the cage wall he surrounded himself in, quieting the crowd. 

 

“Fine.” The words came out like wart on the bottom of one’s foot. “Five portions.” It was more than she deserved. Much more. But he needed her gone. 

 

Rey’s smirk couldn’t be wiped off. Not as the other scavengers eyed her hungrily or as the wind-carried sand cut her skin or as the sound of raiders outside her hut awoke her from another nightmare or the screams of a distant girl like her “comforting” for portions accompanied her dinner. No. She wasn’t going to let the horrors that surrounded her change her. Break her down. Her family was coming back and she had to be strong for them. So they can be proud of what they find. 

 

_ The angel and the fool _

_ Cold and lonely but I don’t know why _

_ She fall down and i can’t do enough _

 

Her days were rough. Juggling the dangers of crumbling ruins of wars long past and the mind games of the sharks in Nima, Rey had her fair share of challenges. It was enough to make a child go insane. Good for her, she lost her childhood a long time ago. 

 

No, the days she could handle. The suns’ quantifiable heat, the biting sand, the wetted-whistles of predators that stalked her in town, the blatant cheating of her “boss”, the only relief found in shadows of fallen giant, Jakku was a verified paradise during the day. It was the night that scared her. 

 

When all the rocks and dunes were cast in a etheral blue, barely conscious with the dim light of Jakku's moons, that was when the real danger emerged. Those with real abodes bolted their entrances, barricaded their windows, kept weapons within reaching distance. Rey had none of those things. 

 

_ Leaning out the window watch the dying of the sun _

_ Balancing the weight of a pill on her tongue _

_ She'll be getting that look in her eyes _

_ Cold and lonely, but I don't know why _

 

Her makeshift home, a hole in the wall patched up with the sheets of metal, even Unkar couldn’t find value in, offered very little protection from a true invasion. What it lack in security, it made up for in invisibility. Without prior knowledge of its existence, one wouldn't even realize it's there. It was something Rey counted on each night. 

 

It was all well and good remaining hidden from looters and the other monsters that prowled the desert at night. But the chill of Jakku’s night found its way in easily. 

 

Rey, having no other clothing than the scrap she arrived in all those years past, could do nothing about it. Just shiver in the dark til day broke. 

 

Beyond that, her life was a blur of scavenging, rationing her meager portions, hiding from the “comfort-recruiters” in the outpost and falling asleep alone in the darkness. In a few short years, she’d forgotten everything. What her family sounded like, their faces, the safety of a real home with walls and a sturdy roof. It was all gone. 

 

A section of the rock wall was kept clear. Each day before the sun set and Rey was sure it wasn’t another nightmare, she marked the wall. She couldn't remember when she started this or even why - No, she knew why. They promised they come for her before she ran out of numbers to count the sols and yet...her wall was filling quickly. It seemed to have no end in sight. Neither did she seem to have a shred of hope of seeing her family again. 

 

Rey clenched her fist around a small capsule. 

 

A gift from one of the comforters she befriended. His name was Neil or at least that was his name before they took him. “I’ve seen your eyes before. Many times, when they let me use the mirror. But you’re not like me, Rey. You’re so much stronger than us.” 

 

“What are you saying?” Rey hesitated, her hand tentatively placed over his open one, the small pill cool to the touch. 

 

Neil smiled at the younger girl, his antennalike eye stuttering to blink, as his wounds from last night ached. “Masie found a pack of these on some officer type. They’re lethal, one quick swallow and it’s over. Don’t you get it, Rey? We’ll be free…” Just the thought of release is enough to satisfy him, turning his own pill in his hands. But when he looks to her and the shock on her face and the sadness in her eyes, he relents. “We’re doing it tonight, slipping one in the boss's too. But...you - you’re different. You’re still you. You’re still free. I wanted to give you one last thing, for all the good you’ve done for me and the others…” He closes her hand around the pill. 

 

“I’m going to miss you, Rey.” 

 

That was weeks ago. Of course, no one cared now. Not that they really did back then, just lamenting the loss of patronage. Unkar smiled when the news broke, less food to pass around she assumed. 

 

It was a dim blue during the day, dull, dismissable. But at night, it looked like the most expensive thing she owned, glowing in the pale moonlight. As she played with it in her hands, a song would play in the back of her head. A melody, almost comforting, almost familiar, almost in the room, it lured her in, enticing her with the thought of release. The thought of leaving Jakku in her own way, her own choice. 

 

_ See her near the border at the end of the line _

_ She falls down, and I can't do enough _

_ But I won't ever let her give up _

 

The capsule felt lighter on her tongue, as if it were nothing at all. Her bag of water was close. Close enough for her to seal the deal, right then and there. But as she reached for it, the pill fell out and onto the dirt floor. Rey scrambled to grab it and clean it, the more she struggler, the dirtier it got. The brilliant blue becoming faded and lost to the sand. As she frantically sifted through the dirty floor, the pill eluded her as if it vanished altogether. 

 

_ See her near the border at the end of the line _

_ She falls down, and I can't do enough _

_ But I won't ever let her give up _

_ The Angel and the Fool _

 

Light Years away, Kylo Ren wakes up with a start, sweat pouring down the length of his nose, eyes wide open, breath struggling to catch itself. Whispers accusing him of crimes, he had yet to commit but knew he would, flooded the room. He couldn’t hear his own voice screaming in his mind. 

 

It was  _ that _ dream again. The one that never left him. The one that followed him to the dark side. 

 

But this time was different. This time he felt her.  _ He felt her. _ Quivering on the sandy floor, wet cheeks, wild eyes, mouth open but unable to scream, it was horror. An emotion he knew he wielded but scarcely ever felt. How poignant he should feel now. He was clueless on how to use it. How to be rid of it. So he stood there, staring at this stranger losing her mind in the desert. How strange he could remember her expression but not her face in the waking hours. 

 

There was only one remedy.

 

_ You're running out… keep running _

_ You're running out… keep running _

_ You're running out… keep running _

_ You're running out… keep running out _

 

Stopping the blaster bolts was of little effort, what had him up the wall was the two sabers he caught with his own. Normally, he’d stick to one-on-one combat but tonight called for stronger position. 

 

It took some effort but he was able to overpower the Knight’s and throw them to the side, swiveling to the side, just in time to avoid another volley of blaster fire. The reprieve was short lived as the Knight were on their feet in no time charging towards Kylo, one angling his blade high, the other low. His response was swift, holding his own saber up to catch the attack of the first Knight, using the force to swove the lower on to the ground. His attention was divided and he was caught up in the fire. 

 

The simulation ended with the blaster fire struck his back, a blast of air forcing Kylo onto his knees. With that the room returned to its normal state, empty, save for the panting figure in the center. 

If anyone was passing by the room in question, which of course no sane soul was, they’d hear a series of anguished screams and finally the melody of ignited plasma. 

 

_ She found herself in a world full of men _

_ Watching them slowly destroy all her plans _

_ Cause all the love she won't allow _

_ Herself to even dream about _

_ Well both of us are older now, and it won't be long _

_ The early morning siren _

_ Is growing louder now _

_ Cause waking up is hard enough when there's no one else around _

 

Rey awoke with the last of the morning suns’ rays, face down on the floor, eyes crusted shut from crying to sleep. As she pushed herself to a semi-standing position, something glinted in the filtered sunlight. The temptation from last night returned but something in her, maybe it was someone, screamed. A pain so visceral, her limbs were aching in response. 

 

In the end, she shook her head and returned to her morning routine, gathering her tools and heading to her usual scaving grounds. Not before crushing the pill underneath her boot, watching the pale blue liquid pool out, she kicked an extra bit of sand to bury it and never looked back. 

 

Jakku was a hard world. But it wasn’t hard enough to break her. Neil was wrong, she wasn’t different. She was just lucky. “Let’s hope this luck holds out.” Rey whispered to herself as the sandspeeder beneath roared to life. 


End file.
